September 2010

there is such a thing as too much empathy and I’m a victim of it. In tolerable doses like a ligament that connects to other life, to people and planets, to love for a questing heron and pain for the fish it’s eating simultaneously. But it’s strength can become unbearable, an expanding gravitational well that pulls in all of the sister Pathos, until you suffer nothing for yourself. Your heart becomes a moon in orbit, creating tides inspiring the science and poetry in others, but barren and cratered, uninhabitable. Love the things you can touch more.

a completely bank holiday mad dash through Copenhagen leaves me wishing there was more time; the city is beautiful, like Amsterdam only more capacious, more direct. Long sprawling avenues under low, lazy streetlights, caressed by swarms of cyclists guided by their very own miniature traffic signals. Herons carouse majestically over the many parks, rubbing feathers with wood pigeons and swans, that hiss like alabaster alley cats when you approach. Our foray precedes the queens annual procession through the city center, and though our spandex schedule can’t allow room for her august presence, soldiers pipe and snap along the route, anticipating. The train to hamburg is a restless human laden affair, people in the aisles and pressed against outer doors like rumbling barnacles, each repeated story of erupted lament aquires the sameness of receding waves scratching the sand. Same story as us. We cross into germany on the ferry, watching sunlight shimmer off the waves, like static on an old black and white television. Too pretty an afternoon for this choked train, for volcanic ash. A one hour layover in hamburg precipitates a run on mcdonalds, as we have not consumed since an ugly late night train snack; the German franchise has bagels, bless. I yearn to try the neighboring vittle venue, it’s logo being an extatic graphite pigs head in the act of smashing it’s way through the wall. No stretch sorting out what happened to the rest of him…The apex of our wounded trek via train through 4 countries in 24 hours looms a mere 20 minutes hence, I shiver in recollection of moses’ fate, sinking beneath the sand just breaths before Canaan. Then I remember I’m here for a big fetish party, god has bigger fish to fry and so, for that matter, does sand. I’d sink into a bed, between the pale flour of her thighs.

I meet christiane at the Stockholm central station at 10pm, and it appears our flight to Amsterdam is doomed due to icelands volcanic episode. Desperate to make the wasteland party on Saturday night, we commit to an adventure in trains, kayaks and dromedary, whatever the fuck gets us from here to there, trusting in a refund from air Baltic to at least defray the expense. We are astride our second train of the morning, toward Copenhagen and count dracula cannot be far behind… We shall make for the borgo pass, cutting the fiend off from his native earth that so, wait, I’m reciting keanu reeves; at best volcanic ash might coalesce into some demonic Finnish golem named Ed Walpole. The line for the ticket counter in Copenhagen coils like a giant python, and it’s 6am. We fail to get the direct train to Amsterdam, resulting in a 200 euro mission through 6 cities over 12 hours. No volcano raining ash on my party, bitch. Despite the face bleaching cost, the sheer adventure of the detour is exhilarating, and we have 4 hours to kill in Dane land.

totally shitfaced drunk at a bar in Stockholm, and christiane referring to Amelie, says:” she has nice boobs, boobs like mine. Good for fighting”We’ve been in Sweden for 3 days, and thanks to an unusual twist of fate involving a license revocation, I’m the proud driver of a souped up jaguar for the duration of my stay. What a way to learn the fine art of foreign road navigation, the swedes seem to err on the side of common sense over demonstrative signage. The roundabouts, like inscrutable tidepools, are particularly sticky to negotiate. I find that going really fast helps my concentration.